Legitimate Excuse for Failure: #2

Excuse # 2 – Politics and Nepotism killed my career

“The coach always picked his son for the team” and “my parents didn’t have the money to buy my way on to the top teams exposure-wise.”

My father never coached any of my teams, doesn’t know how to skate, and has been a hard working mechanic for over 40 years.

We never had the resources to buy our way onto any teams and my father never had the ability to select me ahead of another kid.

I had to play house league hockey until I was 13 because the banker’s son was the goalie on the travel team and in my mind I was far better.

My parents didn’t drink and party, so all the big parties held at the banker’s house certainly gave me every opportunity to feel the sting of politics first hand. Many times “Fat Frankie” couldn’t get up from the ice without flopping over to his belly and climbing up the post. Yet, who starts in the Silver Stick?

I welcomed this type of unfairness. I reveled in it. It gave me goose bumps then as it does as I write this.

I was going to prove these people wrong and I make sure they heard from me when I overcame it and made the NHL. They all received calls shortly after December 5, 1990.